Articles & Other Resources

This is a place for people who are interested in learning about patriarchy and the overall war on women from those that are studying it, fighting it, and speaking out against it from different points of view. Stop Patriarchy is a group for anyone who wants to fight the war on women, and the views expressed in these articles do not reflect the views of everyone involved in this movement. While there are many important books on this subject, some of which are listed here and we encourage everyone to read, on this page we are mainly trying to provide resources that are accessible online.

Did you hear the one about the psychologist, the musician, the student and two professors? April 2014from a Professor in the midwest

They were all involved in deep conversation but nobody was really talking. No, it is not a joke. This was my situation a few weeks ago. This is why I am hosting a webcast viewing party on Friday night.

We were all at an event to recognize the importance of women in the military. How could we possibly run out of things to talk about? Somebody told a story about nurses in World War II. Someone else talked about the monument commemorating women in the Vietnam War. Then I talked about the staggering number of American female soldiers raped by their peers and then the crowd went silent. People started to move away and I did nothing to keep them engaged. This happens a lot lately; I am angry enough to speak out but don’t know what to do next. How do I sustain a conversation about truly important issues?

I live in the middle of nowhere in a community of educated silence. We are smart enough to come together for something important but we can’t actually talk about it. Don’t rock the boat, don’t make anyone uncomfortable, and don’t stand out in the crowd.

But someone did stay to talk about rape in the military. Then another person wandered back. After a few minutes I took another chance: I invited them to my house on April 11 to see the Abortion Rights Emergency Webcast. As we talked about women’s issues and then about the escalating war on women right now in the 21st century I found a way to sustain the conversation.

I don’t have to have all the words because I am part of a larger voice. Sunsara Taylor, Merle Hoffman, Dr. Willie Parker, and Bill Baird: all of these people will speak with me. Thanks to a live streaming webcast they can help me talk about these incredibly important issues. The war on women - including rape, dwindling accesses to birth control and abortion - all of these issues demand our outrage. Many of us were raised to say nothing, especially in the face of crisis; we need a little help to get over the first awkward silence. A psychologist, a musician, a student and two professors will be at my house on Friday. Even if we don’t agree on everything I cannot wait to have a real, honest, important conversation.

Abortion & My Story:I Won't Back Downby David Gunn, Jr.

"...we significantly outnumber those against abortion, and we must have the confidence and perseverance to unabashedly engage the public, teach the scientific truth, and demonstrate our determination to win this war on women. Not because it is, in simplest terms, the right action but because it is just."

"How important, then, is it we re-energize, re-engage, and rejuvenate our conviction to win this fight and win it now—and we absolutely can and will win if we take proper action at this crucial moment!To this end, I want to announce a project I’m supporting and ask that you support as well. Two groups of activists embarking from San Francisco and New York City are planning a freedom ride style journey across the United States set to kick off with joint rallies at each city of origin tentatively set for July 23. The riders will tour and engage the public in areas of the country impacted most by the draconian anti- abortion regulations currently making their way through state houses across the country. Both groups will converge on Bismark, North Dakota by 8/1 to protest the effective date of North Dakota’s fetal heartbeat legislation which goes into full effect 1 August 2013.I believe actions such as these are not only needed but required if we as a movement are going to regain the needed momentum to re-establish our strong and solid footing in our struggle against the well- funded and connected Christian Fascists."

Why I'm Goingon the Abortion Rights Freedom Rideby K.T.

"...While my freshman health book claimed abstinence was one of three "healthy lifestyle factors," alongside staying sober and exercising regularly, Dr. Tiller was assassinated in his own church. While I was unapologetically approached with lies about abortion and bloody photographs, access was strangled where it is need most, in poor and rural counties. Today 97% of rural counties have no abortion provider. While Planned Parenthood dropped “pro-choice” for “it’s complicated” and NARAL erased the word “abortion” from their website, the most restrictive anti-abortion legislation has been taking over at the state level. There are 5 states with only one clinic left: North Dakota, South Dakota, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Kansas.

THIS IS A STATE OF EMERGENCY!

Stop Patriarchy is organizing an Abortion Rights Freedom Ride. These bi-coastal caravans will converge in all 5 states with just one clinic left through a month long series of protests against the anti-abortion women haters and defense of the clinics and providers most under attack while telling the truth about abortion and birth control. I am 17 years old now and I am going on the Abortion Rights Freedom Ride because when I hear the anti-choice movement brag about my generation being “pro-life,” I cringe. We are a generation that has been lied to and kept in the dark about the real truth of abortion and what it means to oppose it. I am riding to build a “liberation generation” in defense of abortion on demand and without apology, for every woman, in every state, to secure safety and freedom in the futures of girls everywhere.

I am spending three weeks of my summer on the road for abortion rights because the women in North Dakota and South Dakota have heart beats that matter, the women in Mississippi and Arkansas and Kansas have futures they deserve a say in, and the future of women all across this nation depend on what ALL of us do to counter these attacks before it is too late."

Across the country, people are waking up to the state of emergency facing the right to abortion. As legislators in Texas pass legislation that will close down 37 of 42 abortion clinics statewide, new laws in North Carolina would close four of their five remaining clinics. Meanwhile, Ohio’s recently passed budget could close as many as three abortion clinics. North Dakota, on August 1st, may become the first state to effectively ban abortion. Already Mississippi’s last abortion clinic is merely an appellate ruling away from closure. We could go on.

If we do not reverse this trajectory now, we will condemn future generations of women and girls to forced motherhood, to lives of open enslavement, terror, and life-crushing shame. Women will be forced to have children they do not want, trapping them in abusive relationships, driving them into poverty, forcing them out of school, and extinguishing their dreams. Women will go to desperate and dangerous measures to terminate unwanted pregnancies, once again flooding emergency rooms and turning up dead women in cheap motels with blood caked between their legs.

We face two divergent roads: Either we seize control of the debate and reset the terms and whole trajectory of this fight; or we continue down the road of “established conventional wisdom,” only to awaken before long to an unrecognizable and untenable situation for women. What each of us does matters, and matters tremendously.

In the summer of 2013, Stop Patriarchy went across the nation to the places where abortion rights were under the sharpest attack: through the (then) 5 states that had only one abortion clinic in the entire state. Thousands participated, real resistance was mounted in a variety of forms, and a lot was learned.

Download or read online this important collection of articles & summation of this project: The Freedom Ride Report.

Below is the statement sent by Sunsara Taylor to the support rally being held on June 26th for the courageous abortion doctor who has been flying into Wichita to provide abortions to women who need them. This doctor has been “outed” by fanatical anti-abortion forces who have targeted her where she lives and works, a pattern that contributed to the assassination of Dr. George Tiller in Wichita in 2009.

Today’s protest against a courageous abortion doctor and counter-protest in support of her are not two sides facing off in a “morally complex” and “never-ending” debate over abortion.

No. Today in Chicago, last night in Texas, and all around this country, we stand at a crossroads. Two fundamentally opposed futures confront women – and society as a whole. Either women will be forced to have children against their will or women will have abortion on demand and without apology and treated as full human beings. And one side or the other is going to win.

Calling BULLSHIT on Obama's "Recommitment to Women"

By Sunsara TaylorI’ve been hearing too much oohing and aaahhh-ing over Obama’s inaugural address. Supposedly he recommit to the equality of women. Bullshit!

“We are true to our creed when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same chance to succeed as anybody else, because she is an American; she is free, and she is equal, not just in the eyes of God but also in our own.”

—- from President Obama’s inaugural address, January 21, 2013Fuck you, Obama. First of all, girls in this country do NOT have the same chance as everyone else! Girls will be molested, raped, abused and demeaned at horrifying rates. Girls will be shamed for having sexual feelings, demonized if they have sex, face enormous restrictions and judgment if they seek abortions, will be taught to starve themselves or hate themselves or cut themselves, will be discriminated against in employment and underpaid in every field, will be surrounded by images of degradation and misogyny in pornography and the broader culture, even if they do not themselves become the direct victims of the pornographers and pimps. How the fuck is that “equal?”

Live from D.C. Day 2: Standing Up For Abortion at the Supreme Court, Taking on the Anti-abortion bullshit, and Challenging the Deadly Reliance on the Democrats of the Pro-choice movement

by Sunsara TaylorWe spent most of yesterday at the Supreme Court for the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. We began by honoring the doctors and providers who risk their lives every day to provide women with abortions.We read statements from some of these doctors as passersby paused to listen. Behind us was a droning voice of a hate-filled anti-abortion fanatic (he later called one of our leaders, “Bitch!” and threatened to “knock [her] out”). Off to the side were a hundred or more anti-abortion activists praying in small circles or kneeling in prayer before the Supreme Court. The whole backdrop only underscored the heroism of the providers who actually give women abortions – and how essential it is to honor them. All too often, they are accompanied and called out by name and known only by those who hate them.But, on the 40th anniversary, at the Supreme Court in DC, their voices and their service and their courage was heralded!Read More!

Stop Asking Me, "Why Do You Hate Men?"The Real Question is Why Do So Many Men Hate Women!

I’ve been thinking lately about the charge that is eventually leveled against anyone that actively fights for women to be treated as human beings. “YOU HATE MEN!!”Not true. But before I go all into defense mode…let me turn the question: Why is it that men hate women?Look at the world we live in, and look, honestly, at what this world is like for women. Look at how many women are raped, the majority of the rapes carried out on women by men that they trust, friends even. One of the ones they thought was one of the “good guys.”Look at how many women are beaten, again mostly by their so-called ‘partners’ and look into how they are often stalked, and live their lives in abject terror. And then, often when they’ve actually left, they are murdered…on the rationale of the murderer that “If I can’t own her, no one will.”Read More!

From Delhi to Ohio & Everywhere Else: If You're Not Fighting Rape, You're Condoning it

By Sunsara Taylor

On Dec. 16, 2012 a 23-year-old medical student was kidnapped, repeatedly gang-raped and tortured on a bus in Delhi, India which had been taken over by six men. She was raped repeatedly, beaten viciously, and penetrated by a rusty iron rod which ruptured her internal organs. By the time her rapists dumped her naked body under an overpass, along with her male companion who had sustained broken bones and a severe beating, 95% of her intestines had been pulled out of her body. Her rapists attempted to run her over with the bus, but her companion managed to pull her out of the way. Still, her ordeal was not over. For nearly two hours, as blood poured from her body, medical treatment was delayed – first as passersby refused to stop and then as police delayed and debated over whose jurisdiction and responsibility she was. On December 29th, after 13 days of emergency surgeries and medical attention, she died.

On August 11, 2012, a 16-year-old girl in Steubenville, Ohio passed out at a party. While she was unconscious, the stars of the local football team stripped her naked, raped her, and goaded party-goers into urinating on her while crowds looked on. They dragged the unconscious girl to three different parties, violating her throughout the night. In cellphone footage taken that night, one of the rapists can be seen laughing and joking about what he and others did to the girl. Referring to the fact that she was unresponsive as this assault went on, he jokes,“Is it really rape, cuz you don’t know if she wanted it or not. She might have wanted it. That might have been her final wish.” While this girl did not, in fact, die, a group of guys can be heard laughing as one of them goes on for a full twelve minutes saying things like, “She is deader than OJ Simpson’s wife,” and, “She is deader than Trayvon Martin.”How different are these two stories, really? Read More!

Reclaiming Abortion As A Fundamental Right: The Essential Alternative to Planned Parenthood's Politics of Capitulation

By Helen Ridsdale. Today is the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, and abortion remains a tense political issue in the United States. It is also more under threat than it has ever been. And yet, pro-choice activism is on the wane; while hundreds of thousands march for “life” every year, it is rare to see many on the pro-choice side in the streets. The pro-choice movement is taking a more conciliatory stance towards their opponents, and increasingly letting the anti-abortionists set the terms of the debate in the name of reaching across the divide. Conciliation seems generous and high-minded, to those who believe the battle has already been won; and indeed, many in the US today consider abortion rights to be a foregone conclusion. And particularly with a democratic president in the White House, something we can all happily, comfortably forget about. Those who once stood up for women, and stood up for abortion, have been lulled to sleep. The reality is more like a nightmare.

¡Goodbye Shame!

by Nicole, age 16

I am angry, but I am done with the shame. I did nothing wrong. There is nothing I did that made it happen. There is nothing I could have done to prevent it. I am done with the shame. I have spent my entire life blaming myself, and finally I am done.At just 7 years of age I experienced a series of sexual assaults in which I was forcibly restrained and molested, given a cookie to keep quiet each time. I still turn down cookies to this day.At 14, I was taken advantage of by an older friend who I trusted, they made me feel dirty. I blamed myself for both of these tragedies; playing back the assaults in my mind mining for mistakes I must have made. I learned to not trust males, especially older men.On my 15th birthday I told myself I was bigger, nobody could hurt me, and that the past was behind me. At this point I began to say that I no longer blamed myself but every night I still laid awake, wondering what I did wrong, what I could have done differently.Read More!

I Still Don't Call It Rape and the Weight of it Gets Heavier All the Time

from Abigail Lynn I was 42 before it really, seriously dawned on me that my first sexual experience was an assault. Even now, in my late 50s, I cannot say that it was rape. Rape is what happens to others; this wasn’t “as bad.” Even as I write about it now I have to soften it, distinguish it from real pain, by calling it an assault. It was 1970; I had just turned 15. Much of my life seemed out of control (parents, peer pressure, poverty, etc) but it was all better when I was babysitting. I had my regular job, every day after school and usually Friday and Saturday nights. They were a great hippie couple (both 31) with four wonderful boys. She was beautiful, earthy, smart, and funny. He had long dark hair pulled into a ponytail, stoner blue eyes, and wore tie-dyed t-shirts and love beads. They knew all the local bands, went to all the trippy parties, and stayed out all night long. They introduced me to Janis Joplin, Allen Ginsberg, and weed. She worked all day at an office to pay the bills; he flaked from job to job without much real success. He graduated from seminary school and was a minister for a few years. That is how I met them: he worked at a neighborhood church running all kinds of cool programs for kids. By the time I babysat for them he was already into a different line of non-work...

Response to Abigail: Rape is NEVER the Victims Fault

from Andrea StrongRape is NEVER the victim’s fault. Let me repeat that: Rape is NEVER EVER EVER EVER the fault of the victim. If you were raped, suspect you were raped, or if you were coerced by words or charm or threat, and may not call it rape, but still feel violated, IT WAS NOT YOUR FAULT.

We live in a RAPE culture, a culture where people think that rape has to with sex. Rape has little to do with sex; it is about one person controlling another: whether through physical violence, emotional pressure, or leveraging of power or other social capital, to the point where the victim of the rape feels anything from humiliation all the way up to fear for their life as the dominant emotions. Any female, from the age of 6 months to 90 years old, of any nationality, from any walk of life, wearing any kind of clothing, doing any kind of work or activity (sometimes even sleeping in her own bed), is at risk. Any female in any physical environment, at any time of day or night, is at risk. It could happen in her own home, at a college frat party, at her kindergarten playground, at her church or temple, at her job, in her car, on the street, on the bus or subway, etc., etc., etc. The aggressor could be her boyfriend, her teacher, her priest, her husband, her friend, her date, a stranger, her employer, her boss, her client, her co-worker, even her father/brother/uncle/ or other family member, etc., etc.,etc...

Who is stop patriarchy?

Stop Patriarchy is a group for everyone who wants to FIGHT to STOP the enslavement of women. Not politely lobby against it. Not grumble at the TV. Not simply post things on Twitter. And definitely not sit around waiting for those in power to “come to their senses.” It is also a movement for everyone who can be won to see the need for this – we are fighting aggressively to change minds and to grow and deepen and escalate until we succeed in changing everything. JOIN US!